An Integrated Simulation Optimisation Decision Support Tool for Multi-Product Production Systems

Abstract

Over the past decades, the rising energy prices and imposing environmental regulations have motivated manufacturers to improve the energy efficiency of their manufacturing processes. Manufacturers need to also consider energy efficiency in addition to classical performance measures. The additional performance dimension (energy-related indicators) significantly increases the complexity of classical production planning problems (e.g. scheduling), already known as NP-hard problem).To overcome the inherited complexity, an integrated simulation-optimization framework is proposed. The proposed approach tackles scheduling problem in a multi-product/multi-machine manufacturing environment and optimi..